A Bigger Small World

March 23, 2012

By Bill Duggan, Group EVP, ANA

Last week ANA and WFA (World Federation of Advertisers) partnered together for the first time on a Global Marketing Conference. In prepping for the event, I uncovered some simple, yet very interesting, population facts.

The world population just went over 7 billion this month. Meanwhile, the U.S. population is 313 million. 4.5% of the world’s population is in the U.S. Said another way, 95% of the potential consumers for many products and services are outside the U.S.

Many U.S. marketers are very U.S.-centric. We often think about the U.S. and then “ROW” – that odd term for rest of the world. Many of us speak only one language fluently. But that simple population fact—95% of the potential consumers for many products and services are outside the U.S.—is very enlightening.

Joe Tripodi, chief marketing and commercial officer at The Coca-Cola Company said it very well, “There is a new Atlanta somewhere in the world every thirty days.” The city of Atlanta, by the way, has a population of about 450,000.